Businessman Emil Sick bought the Seattle Indians baseball team in 1937. The appropriation of Indigenous names for professional sports teams has been popular since the 19th century and is one common example of discrimination and marginalization faced by Native peoples in the United States. Sick renamed the team the Seattle Rainiers and started work on a new steel and concrete baseball stadium in Rainier Valley, south of downtown. Sick's Seattle Stadium opened in June 1938. For years, fans crowded the stadium or watched from the slopes overlooking the outfield. By the 1960s, fewer people were going to the games. The stadium was torn down in the 1970s.